


you don't have to pretend, he's just your friend

by tinydragon (tiny_dragon)



Category: Eyewitness (US TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-20
Updated: 2016-11-20
Packaged: 2018-09-01 04:41:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8608378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiny_dragon/pseuds/tinydragon
Summary: It’s hard to unlearn the way to act around someone. It’s even harder to unlearn the way that you feel about them.
Or, there's no murder, and Philip and Lukas decide to be just friends. It doesn't work out all too well.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i genuinely think this is the worst thing that i've ever written, but i'm trying to combat writer's block  
> title is from friends by flatsound  
> some helpful notes: rose and lukas aren't together in this fic, the murder never happened, and lukas and philip are actual friends

 He’s still not sure who decided that they were better off as friends.

Philip is pretty sure that it wasn’t his idea, because whenever he gets a little too close to Lukas he still has to tell himself that it’s not okay to reach over and take his hand. And he has to move away when he catches himself, and realises that they’re sat just that little bit too close together. And he has to remind himself, sometimes, when they’re sat down on opposite sides of the room studying that he really can’t stand up, and reach over the bed, and cup Lukas’ face and kiss him.

It’s hard to unlearn the way to act around someone. It’s even harder to unlearn the way that you feel about them.

And so: they’ll sit, after school, studying in Lukas’ room. The sky will be turning a little darker outside, and soft music will be playing gentle from the radio, because Lukas has never thought to listen to a song that isn’t in the top 40, and the city is a haven for underground indie bands.

It’s quiet, quite a lot of the time. Not because it needs to be, but because it is. It’s comfortable, but the thoughts in Philip’s head are so loud that they distract him anyway. It’s okay. It’s just that it’s not how it’s supposed to be.

So when everything has been quiet for a little too long, and the last song on the album they’re streaming comes to an end, Philip lets his pen drop.

“Lukas,” he says.

Lukas looks up. He’s sitting on his bed, knees up. History book across his thighs, and Philip is pretty sure he’s thinking about anything other than the assignment that is due tomorrow.

He wants to say, “I miss you,” but he can’t, because Lukas is right there. He can’t miss him, except for the part where he somehow really does.

“Yeah?” Lukas says. His voice is wary. Maybe he can feel it too, this thing. He’s looking at Philip, and drawing up instructions in invisible ink. The expression on his face is blank, but there’s something there that says, _don’t_.

“I’m,” Philip swallows. “I’m not sure about question three. Can you, uh,” he trails off. He doesn’t even know what question three is.

“Oh,” Lukas says. He nods, pushes the workbook off of his lap, and it slips down onto his duvet, and he stands up. “Yeah. Yeah, of course.”

::

Tivoli is weird. If the city is a living, breathing person all by itself, then Tivoli is a corpse that’s been rotting for several years.

There are a lot of things that are different about it. There are stars in the sky, and walking home by yourself late at night is a thousand times safer. The expanse of trees and fields and forest leaves shadows and shade draped around, and the lake has a cooling effect, not like the sweaty sidewalk that the city leaves when the sun swelters down.

It’s postcard pretty, but there’s not really anybody to write too. He doesn’t have a return address, not really. He’s still not entirely sure of the point at which the house he’s staying in really becomes home, but it’s getting there. That’s the problem with Tivoli. Everything is kind of his, but not really. His bedroom, the sweatshirt Gabe bought him last Christmas. His own backyard, the carton of apple juice in the bottom drawer of the fridge. Lukas.

Lukas is kind of his, but not really.

He still smiles like he is. Shakes his head and grins with his eyes and brushes against his hand with that kind of first crush nervousness, as if they haven’t been the whole way around here before.

Because Lukas agrees that they’re better off as friends, and then blows the rest of his allowance on a polaroid camera for him.

“You like taking pictures, right?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

Philip’s grinning and Lukas is the littlest bit red, not that he’d ever dare to point it out. And he shrugs and smiles like he’s embarrassed, and rubs the back of his neck.

“Well,” he says. “There you go, then.”

“You didn’t have to get this for me, you know,” Philip says.

“I know. I wanted to, though.”

They’re outside, in the centre of the town. And Tivoli is quiet, but there are people milling around, and Lukas is scared of his feelings like a child of the dark. But they’re sat just close enough to kiss, and Philip looks at him for a long moment before Lukas tears his eyes away, and Philip reminds himself.

_Yeah. Just friends._

Philip wants to say, “why are we doing this?” What he actually says is, “thank you, Lukas.”

Lukas doesn’t meet his eyes when he mumbles, “it’s nothing.”

::

“So this is where you live, huh?” Lukas says.

They’re walking down the streets, and it feels easy, and natural, and normal. Like they’ve been here forever and they’re not stuck together in a small town, and Philip isn’t sick to death of secrets.

“Yep,” Philip tells him. “Born and raised right here on this sidewalk.”

Lukas rolls his eyes and gives Philip a quick, sharp elbow in the side. “You know what I mean.”

Philip grins. “Yeah, I know. Yeah. This is where I’m from.”

“It’s… very different from Tivoli.”

“You think?”

“What’s with all the sarcasm today, man?” Lukas complains.

“What’s with all the stupid questions?”

“Hey, you can’t blame me. I’m just a country boy. This is all new to me, city kid.”

Philip considers this for a moment. “I guess I’ll have to cut you some slack, then,” he says. Lukas is carrying a milkshake in his left hand, because here in the city there are shops that sell them in more than just two flavours, and he has his priorities set.

“But it is,” he continues. “It _is_ different here. It must be, you know. It must be really weird.”

“Yeah,” Philip agrees, eventually. “It is very different. Tivoli, I mean. It’s as different as you can get.”

“Is it a good different?”

“Sometimes. It’s… pretty. Gabe and Helen are super nice. It’s less smoggy, you know? The city just smells like smoke and engines but – it’s still home. Tivoli isn’t home.”

“So you’d leave? If you could?” there’s something in his voice that sounds a little hurt. They’re walking too closely together, and the sun is too watery.

It feels like a first date, and it’s making Philip’s head spin.

“I didn’t say that,” he says, weakly.

“But would you?” Lukas stops then, and so Philip falls into a standstill, too. The people walk by them, everyone in a hurry, like always, and the two of them move backwards a little, so that they’re resting against a wall.

Lukas’ fingers are clasped around his wrist. Gently, barely there. He’d pulled him back, slowed him into a stop. He’s looking right at him, waiting for an answer.

“No,” Philip says, because it’s the truth.

“Why not?” Lukas asks him. His voice is quiet.

The city is a place full of sound. Nothing is ever still, everything blurring and whirring and moving. It’s a play by play of the sky moving from day to night at all times because everything goes too fast. Tivoli is the same, static image of afternoon scenery. Occasionally, a blade of grass might blow. Nothing is ever still in the city, but Lukas makes it feel close enough. Makes it – not quiet, but quieter.

Being with him is like wearing earmuffs.

“My mom isn’t there anymore,” Philip says. “She’s – you know. There’s nothing for me in the city, really.”

“But there’s something for you in Tivoli,” Lukas supplies, and it isn’t a question, but Philip answers it anyway.

He wants to say, “you know there is.”

Philip swallows, and he tries not to look at Lukas’ lips, and the way his tongue is just slightly poking out, the way it does when he’s thinking too hard, or worrying, or weary, but he does. And he tries not to think about how he could kiss Lukas here and nobody would care, nobody would care if they didn’t live in Tivoli, but he can’t help that, either.

“I guess so,” is what Philip actually says. “I guess so, yeah.”

::

“It’s seven am,” Philip’s rubbing the sleep dust out of his eyes, and shivering. Because the sky is barely blue, and Lukas is on his doorstep and it’s cold, this early. The breeze on his skin is like ghosts walking through his body. “It’s Saturday, Lukas, what the hell?”

Lukas grins. “Sorry,” he says, though he isn’t. “I was gonna spend the day out on my bike. Thought you might wanna come for a ride.”  
“And you couldn’t do it at a more reasonable hour?” he’s grumbling like an old man, and he wishes Lukas would worry about him being pissed off, or saying no, but they both know that’s not going to happen.

Lukas has him wrapped right around his little finger, and he’s not sure when that happened.

“You can tell you’re a city kid,” Lukas snorts. “It’s nice this early. Peaceful.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

They’re quiet for a moment. Philip is still shivering, slightly, and he can feel Lukas’ eyes travelling down, resting briefly on the way that his shirt is thin, how it hugs against his body.

It’s exhausting, the way that they pretend only to know each other as friends, as if Lukas’ hands haven’t ridden up his shirt before, fumbled across his skin with spirit fingers.

“So,” Lukas says, finally. He draws his eyes away, cheeks flushed.

Philip wishes that he’d stop pretending not to want this.

“Are you coming, or not?”

Philip sighs, long and hard. As if he wouldn’t let Lukas throw rocks at his window until the glass broke at the crack of dawn, if it meant that the two of them could be alone together for a while longer.

He wants to say, “you already know the answer to that.”

“Well, I’m already awake now.”

Lukas laughs, and turns away from the door.

“Come on, city boy,” he says. “I’ll give you two minutes to get yourself ready. And don’t go back to sleep. I’ll know.”

As if he could, when Lukas is looking at him that way.

::

They’re outside, lying on the grass with two empty beer bottles at their ankles, and the sky is so full of stars that Philip thinks it might burst.

They’re not drunk – they’ve not had nearly enough – but he’s got this huge, stupid smile on his face, and he sort of feels like he is. And that’s nothing to do with alcohol, it’s to do with Lukas, and the stupid stories he’s telling about motocross that Philip is actually beginning to understand now, after hanging out with him so much.

“You’re talking shit,” Philip tells him, laughing, and Lukas nudges him sharply.

“Hey,” he protests. “You’re the one who’s still listening.”

“I’ve got nothing better to do,” Philip says. “It’s Tivoli.”

Lukas puts his hand to his heart. “That’s my hometown you’re talking about,” he says. “Words hurt.”

“Yeah, like the point of you and motocross isn’t half just so you can get out of this town.”

“Good point,” Lukas says.

They’re quiet for a minute, and Philip hates this. Because they’re too close together in spite of the distance. And a few months ago, he’d have rolled over, just a bit. Lukas’ face would be wary, and he’d say, “what are you doing?” like he didn’t have the slightest idea. But he’d move in just as quick to kiss him.

“Can you blame me?” Lukas asks. His voice is a lot softer now, but it still feels loud in the silence of the country. Trees are shaking behind them, the grass swelling, but otherwise, there’s nothing, no one.

There’s never anyone around in Tivoli. Sometimes, it’s hard for Philip to remember what Lukas is so scared of. Sometimes it feels like it’s just the two of them, alone out here, the only people to break the silence.

“No,” Philip admits.

Lukas sits up, and Philip follows suit, a moment later, eyebrows furrowing. Wondering if he’s done something wrong.

He wants to say, “are you going to run again? Please don’t run again.”

“Lukas?”

“Being like… I am,” Lukas says slowly. “Out here, it sucks. You get that, right? Why I’ve got to get out of here?”

“Yeah,” Philip says, quietly. “Yeah, I get it.”

They don’t say anything else for a while. Philip feels like he is holding a whole world on the tip of his tongue. He draws blood trying to keep his lips pressed together.

::

“Rose again?” Philip says.

He tries to keep the bite out of his voice. It doesn’t really work. But Lukas doesn’t notice, he’s too busy, leaning over his phone to text her back, as if they hadn’t been in the middle of a conversation just moments before.

“What?” Lukas asks, looking up absently, sliding his phone back into his pocket.

Philip shakes his head. “Forget it,” he mutters. But then he goes back on himself in an instant, asking “how is Rose, then?”

“She’s good,” Lukas says. “She, uh, she’s got a problem with people who reply slowly. Calls me straight out on it. Bit like you.”

Philip wants to laugh. A bit like him? Somehow, he doubts that.

“She’s going to ask you out,” he tells him. As if Lukas doesn’t know, can’t hear the way that her friends are giggling about the two of them, the way his own are egging him on.

“You think?”

“Yeah. I do.”

“Oh,” Lukas says.

“What will you say?”

“I… I don’t know, really.”

Philip crosses his arms. “Come on, Lukas, don’t be that much of a dick.”

“What?” he looks up, startled, and Philip shakes his head.

“You must – you must know how fucked that is. That wouldn’t be fair to her. At all. Come on, Lukas, you know that.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lukas mutters.

“You don’t like her,” Philip says. He wants to say, “you like me”, but this is the closest he’s come to honesty for a while.

“How would you know that?” Lukas says. Philip tries to meet his eye, and fails. “You don’t know anything about me.”

Like they’re back to last year, and a hundred things haven’t happened between them. As if Lukas hadn’t kissed him goodnight and across his bed and on his cheek and in the dark but in the light, too, in the day, outside, in the forest, always hiding but it was almost okay.

“Yeah,” Philip says. “Yeah, okay, sure.” After a moment, he stands up, pressing his hands down against his knees as he does so.

“Philip,” Lukas says, sighing. “Come on, don’t be like this.”

“I’m not being like anything,” Philip tells him, shortly. “I’ve gotta get home. Gotta – Helen and Gabe. You know how it is.”

“Philip,” Lukas says. “Please. I’ll turn my phone off. No – no more talk about Rose.”

Philip pauses. He folds his arms again, looks down, unsure.

There are so many things that he wants to say.

A year ago, they’d have had this conversation, and Lukas would stand up, trembling. Give him a soft kiss, make him stay, even though he was scared.

But it’s not like that anymore. Just friends, they’d decided, was the best way to be. To stop this from happening, so that it wouldn’t hurt anymore.

Being just friends is a pretty poor replacement for a plaster.

“I’ve gotta go,” he mutters, and he makes his way towards the door.

Lukas doesn’t follow him.

::

They’re watching movies, old ones, that Lukas found in his Dad’s shed that looked like they were from the earliest days of television. They’re awful, with terrible acting and cheesy lines, and the worst filmography ever. The kind of thing that becomes funny when you’re with a friend.

“Your dad had some pretty weird tastes in movies,” Philip tells him. “I think you might have to stage an intervention.”

“I think I might have to make an eBay account,” Lukas admits. “Having these in the house just feels wrong.”

Philip snorts. “Good luck with that,” he says.

“Thanks,” Lukas tells him.

On the table, in front of them, his phone goes off. Philip peers forward, just slightly. Sees the name ‘Rose’ flash up on the screen. One new message.

Lukas sees it too. He ignores it, lets the screen fade to black.

The two of them aren’t dating. Lukas’ friends still jeer and tease, but not so much.

They’re sitting too closely together again, their thighs pressed up and their arms brushing. Philp tells himself to move away, wills Lukas to do it instead. Neither of them move.

“I want to do this with you every single day,” is what Philip wants to say.

Instead, he swallows. This time, the words feel really, really difficult to force back into his throat. Like something rough and made of metal.

“Got any others?” Philip asks, and Lukas grins.  
“You bet,” he says. “You aren’t even ready for what I’ve got.”

_You didn’t need to tell me that_ , Philip thinks. _Believe me, I know_.

::

They’re up in the cabin, taking a break from riding Lukas’ bike. Philip took a few polaroid pictures, and Lukas is flicking through them, commenting on his own prowess and making stupid comments.

It feels far too much like somewhere they’ve been before.

“These pictures are so good,” Lukas says. “Not something I can use for my sponsors, or anything, but they’re cool, right? That polaroid camera – that was a good move on my part, right?”

“That the reason you bought it?” Philip raises his eyebrows. “So you could be vain about your own motocross skills?”

“Maybe,” Lukas grins. “Not my fault I know how much you love taking pictures of me.”

Philip rolls his eyes. “Dumbass,” he mutters.

“It’s, uh, been ages since I’ve been up here,” Lukas says, looking around the room. “Think my dad might’ve repainted. You think so?”

“I don’t know,” Philip says. “I mean, you’ve been in here more than I have.”

Last time they were here, Philip was kissing him for the first time and feeling as if he’d just tasted wildfire.

“I’ll ask him when I’m home,” Lukas says, kind of awkwardly, like he’s out of things to say.

“Have you been up here since you brought me?” Philip asks. He’s not sure why. It’s probably not the best thing to say.

He’s getting decidedly worse at holding his tongue.

“No,” Lukas says. He swallows. “That’s what I mean. It’s been ages.”

“It’s not that long,” Philip says, quietly. “A few months.”

“It feels like longer,” Lukas says. “Feels like – feels like a whole world ago, doesn’t it?”

Does it?

Philip wants to say, “I don’t want to be just friends.”

Philip doesn’t say anything at all.

“Philip?”

“I…” his voice trails off, and he can’t help but let his eyes flit down, to Lukas’ lips. He’s learned not to reach in and kiss him by now, he’s unlearned the way he used to greet him when nobody was around to witness.

It’s a lot harder to unlearn how it feels to kiss them, how it feels to want to.

“Yeah,” he says, eventually. His voice is quiet.

Philip draws his eyes away, looks up, and just barely meets Lukas’. And Lukas’ eyes drift down, slightly. Fall down his face, just slightly. They rest on his lips.

Philip doesn’t mean to move towards him, but he supposes he must do, because Lukas is moving away, quickly, standing up. Blurting out some stuff about getting home, errands to run, his dad was gonna flip –

“I’ll give you a ride,” Lukas says. “I’ll, um, I’ll call you tomorrow. Tell you what Dad said. Pretty sure there’s like, a whole coat of paint on the walls now, all fresh. Looks completely different. Don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” Philip says. “Yeah. Sure.”

::

“Rose did ask me out, you know,” Lukas says it like it’s nothing. They’re sitting together at lunch, which they barely ever do, but today is an exception. He takes a bite out of his sandwich as if it’s nothing, and he doesn’t meet Philip’s eye.

“Okay,” Philip says. “Uh, congratulations.”

“I didn’t say yes, idiot.”

“Okay,” Philip repeats.

“I just,” Lukas puts down his sandwich, and he sighs. “I just wanted you to know. She asked me to the movies and stuff, said if she didn’t I never would, and. Yeah.”

“What did you say?”

“I said that’d be cool, if we could, you know. Go as friends.”

“Isn’t that still saying yes?” Philip asks, because he doesn’t know how to deal with the fact that he’s flushing a little bit, and doesn’t know what else to say.

Lukas rolls his eyes. “Takes a lot to impress you, doesn't it?”

“I didn’t realise you were trying to.”

“Well. Anyway. I just wanted you to know.”

Philip looks at him. And he wants to ask, “why?”, so he does.

“Because,” Lukas won’t meet his eyes. “I’m not saying it. You know why, okay?”

Philip nods. He picks up his own sandwich, and when he takes a bite, it tastes funny in his mouth.

“Okay.”

::

The sun filters through the rooftop, made up of thick hedge and foliage. It’s nothing Philip’s ever seen at home, and even though he guesses, to a degree, this _is_ home now, it still feels weird.

“How is your mom doing?” Lukas asks, quietly.

“Better,” Philip tells him. “A lot better. It’s… good.”

He’s always filled with the strange sort of sadness after a visit with his mother. It’s good to see her getting better, the colour in her cheeks. But it’s a reminder of how far away she is. He misses her cigarette smell, the feel of her curls falling onto his cheek, when she kissed him on the forehead, and said that she’d love him forever.

“You must miss her a lot,” Lukas says. It’s a strangely emotional thing for him to say, in the sense that whilst he’s getting better, he still tends to have the emotional availability of someone who records automated messages for the subway.

“Yeah,” Philip says, surprised. “I do. It’s hard. I… I do like it here, a lot. I don’t know if I’d want to leave, really. But I miss her. It can’t ever really be home without her, I guess.”

Lukas nods.

“Thanks, by the way,” Philip says, clearing his throat. He feels kind of awkward, and he hugs his knees together. “For, um. Bringing me up here. It’s a good place to clear your head.”

“I know,” Lukas says. He gives him a small smile. “S’ kind of why I did it.”

“Good call.”

“Thanks.”

The two of them are quiet for a moment. Philip is thinking about home. Home home, back in the city. He wonders what their apartment is like now, with nobody in it. He wonders, fleetingly, if he’ll ever go back there.

It’s up to him, Gabe and Helen said. At the time, Philip was thinking that he’d go back in a heartbeat, as nice as his foster parents were. But they keep asking him about what he wants for his birthday, and Helen drove all the way out to get him a decent pizza. And there’s Lukas. And sometimes Philip just isn’t really sure.

He imagines Ann out here. The wildflowers getting caught in her hair, and a little cottage that they could call home, out by the fresh air of the lake.

Lukas breaks the silence.

“Philip?”

“Yeah?”

Lukas takes a breath. “You know I like you, right?”

“Yeah,” Philip says, quietly. “I know.”

Lukas nods.

“Good.”

::

“Still freaks me out, you know. That you can see the stars so well out here.”

“Can’t you in the city?” Lukas asks.

They’re sat on top of the school roof, even though it’s late, and they’re probably not supposed to be. But it’s not as if they’re in the building, and there’s not many places to go for a scenic walk in Tivoli, anyway.

“No. Light pollution.”

“Shit,” Lukas says. “Well. There you go. Reasons to stay in Tivoli.”

“Thanks,” Philip says dryly. “Came for the foster care system, stayed for the stars.”

“Damn right. It’s one of the better things that this place has got going for it.”

“Mm.”

Quiet. Sometimes, it feels like the two of them are running out of things to say.

In the city, even somewhere like this, late at night when the world is half asleep, it’d still be loud. White noise blurring into the background. Sirens a few streets away. Somebody is always awake, and it’s comforting. It’s nice to be reminded that there are other people in the world.

In Tivoli, right now, he feels like he and Lukas are the only two people in the whole world. It’s something that he’s okay with, more than he thought he would be, and right now, Philip wants to say, “Lukas, I don’t want to be just friends.”

He wants to say it, so he does.

Lukas looks up, eyes kind of wide. And he hesitates, for a long moment. Like a kid afraid of the dark, with a fainter light to keep the ghosts out.

“I don’t either,” his voice is small. But he says it. In the silence of Tivoli, it breaks through the quiet like all of the sounds of the city.

“Can I kiss you?”

Lukas nods, like those three words were the last he’d had left. Philip kisses him, soft and gentle, and it feels more like home than anything else has for a while.

And it feels so good, finally, to learn how not to unlearn him.  

**Author's Note:**

> hope u enjoyed! i'm on tumblr at philipsheaas please come and give me feedback and also ideas so the next fic i write actually has an interesting plot


End file.
